


would you stick around for the comedown?

by Analyse (D_Willims)



Series: it'll still be two days till we say we're sorry [7]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And the 1 Time Vanya Didn't, Author Has Read Some Comics, But They Don't Matter Here, Gen, Ghost Headcanons I Have Them, Klaus is a mess, Lowkey 5 Times His Siblings Died on Him, The Rest are Just In the Background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:27:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Willims/pseuds/Analyse
Summary: Klaus only sees his family after deaths. Until he doesn't.





	would you stick around for the comedown?

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from "5 In The Morning" by Charlie XCX.
> 
> Series title from "One Week" by the Bare Naked Ladies.
> 
> Series-within-a-series title from "Colors" by Halsey.

Klaus is high.

Training is getting more brutal in the face of defeat: they’d almost lost Allison. Everyone is just _coping_. And coping for Klaus is taking a fistful of pills—he doesn’t even know what—and getting so fucking high he doesn’t even know his own name. He steps into an icy bath. Ben’s used all the hot water scrubbing blood from his skin. But that’s okay because Klaus is a solid bruise and he hasn’t been warm since the mausoleum.

For a while, Klaus just drifts. Floats. Lets the sound of the staticky radio and the light from the hallway wash over him. He closes his eyes and sinks down below the water. Wants it to take him away.

And then there’s a ghost. The first ghost in three years. Klaus screams, swallows a lungful of water. He jolts upright, coughing up water. Even in the dark bathroom, he can see his own breath which he supposes is a relief considering he’s staring at his own face. Thinner and more weather-beaten, but unmistakably _his_.

“Four,” the ghost says. Then, “Klaus.”

“Five,” Klaus responds because he doesn’t know what else he _can_ say.

“Shit.”

Klaus nods his agreement and reaches out for the pack of cigarettes and lighter hidden under the edge of the bath. They were Allison’s, but she’d probably understand given the circumstances. Or they’d find out if she could throw a punch with that new arm, either way.

“You shouldn’t smoke. Those things will kill you.”

Humming his agreement, Klaus draws his knees to his chest and lights up. “Is that what got you?”

Five blinks, long, slow, and thoughtfully. Like he’s not even sure what hit him. “Goddamnit. I _knew_ fucking Twinkies didn’t last forever.”

Objectively speaking, there was nothing funny about his brother—his _twin_ not that it mattered in the long run—dying tragically young. But Klaus is so high the world’s gone blurry at the edges and the whole thing is hilarious. The great and terrible Five, felled by a Twinkie. He nearly chokes on the cigarette laughing. Laughs and laughs until he cries, curled up over his knees like a small child.

“You look like shit,” Five says when Klaus finally stops.

Klaus hums again, lapses into silence. So that the only sound in the bathroom is his own ragged breathing and the radio. Their siblings walking in the hallway but ignoring the open bathroom door: business as usual.

“You’ve been gone for three years,” Klaus points out. Coughs and brings the cigarette up to his lips.

“Nineteen,” Five corrects. And that doesn’t sound right but his math has always been better.

“Where’d you go?”

“Hell.” Five draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, mirroring Klaus’s position. Leans his cheek on his arms and stares out into the distance. At something Klaus can’t see.

“Welcome to the club.”

“I think I had to bury you.”

“That’s dark, bro.” Klaus closes his eyes, feeling more than hearing the vibrations of the radio ripple over him. He’s so cold. It feels like the tub has frozen over and he just wants to sink down into it again.

He doesn’t open his eyes again until Luther seizes him by the armpits and lifts him up out of the water. Klaus whines when his brother wraps him up in warm, fluffy towels. They smell like the sickly-sweet dryer sheets and his stomach churns.

“Where’d Five go?” he mumbles, squinting against the harsh light that flooded the bathroom now.

“You’re high,” Luther responds, rubbing a towel through Klaus’s hair. A weird combination of frustrated-harsh and _too aware_ gentle. Then, “We’ll find him,” because he’s always been an optimistic bastard. Klaus doesn’t have the heart to tell him Five’s dead.

\--

Klaus doesn’t see Five again after that. He’s not sure if he hopes that he hallucinated the whole thing or he hopes he’s stayed high enough not to see his brother’s ghost again. Either way he’s certain his mind’s unravelling. But it’s a good thing he recognizes it, right?

 

Then Ben dies. And Klaus might be the highest he’s ever been, shaking in the corner of a phone booth some blocks away from the apartment he’d been crashing at. Time had passed since he called for a ride and he’s still too drunk to be hungover. His last joint dangles dangerously from his fingers. There’s dried blood on the side of his face and he doesn’t even know where that came from.

Nothing seems real. Least of all Ben, appearing suddenly before him. It’s just before dawn and suddenness is all relative because Klaus thinks he’s been passing out on and off. Every time he blinks, it seems like the whole world shifts just a little.

“Jesus, Klaus,” Ben hisses and he reaches forward. Towards the gash on the side of his head that Klaus had, up until that moment, entirely forgotten about. “What happened to you?”

Ben’s hand passes through Klaus’s head completely. It’s like a waterfall of ice spilling down Klaus’s back and he shudders violently. Retches because moving, it turns out, was a terrible idea. And Ben looks down, small and sad like when he was little.

“Sorry. I didn’t…”

“No,” Klaus whispers as the true horror of it all sets in. “No! No, no, no, no, _no, no, no, no_. **No**!”

“Hey, hey…” Ben soothes. Entirely too calm and rational about this. He has his hands up like he’s trying to tame a wild animal; the way he does when Luther and Diego get out of hand.

“ **No**! Fuck you!”

It’s different than it was with Five. Maybe he’d been numb, then, or maybe it had just been so long since he’d seen Five that the loss hadn’t felt as real. But he’d _just_ been talking to Ben minutes ago. Hours, maybe. Fuck, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter because it had been so recent.

And Ben didn’t even _look_ dead.

“Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare…” Klaus tries to punch Ben and his fists go all the way to glass of the pay phone booth. He punches again. And again and again and again. Until his fists are beaten black and blue.

Ben stands there, unflinchingly. And Diego is there, somehow. Klaus has blinked and the world has shifted again. Everything tilts to the left.

“You have to let someone help you,” Ben says. Still so frustratingly calm.

“Fuck you,” Klaus hisses. He slams his hands into Diego’s chest. And Klaus can’t even imagine how terrible he must have looked because Diego doesn’t hit him back. Just grabs his arms and hold him still until Klaus can’t struggle anymore. “Fuck you.”

Klaus blinks and the world shifts dramatically. He’s pretty sure he never comes down from that high because coming down means feeling, _actually feeling_. And Klaus can’t, won’t do that. The drugs don’t chase Ben’s ghost away which raises a lot of questions.

“Where’s Five?” Klaus mumbles into the pillow that isn’t really his. He’s hooked up with a chef who works late nights. It gives Klaus too much time to think and talk to himself.

“Maybe he didn’t want to deal with your sorry ass,” Ben replies. He’s found a book somewhere, somehow. Mysteries of the spiritual plane.

“Fuck you.” Klaus curls up on himself. He feels sick but what else is new?

“Fuck you,” Ben replies.

“ _Fuck you_.” Klaus pulls the pillow out from under his head and throws it in Ben’s general direction. He regrets it instantly. Sleep is even harder to come by now that his pillow is gone. Groaning, he pulls the covers over his head.

“Fuck you.”

“Fu…” The words die on Klaus’s lips. He jolts upright, blankets pooling in his lap. And that’s definitely Diego sitting on the end of the bed.

A sickening gash is open on the side of his head. Blood stains his face and neck.

Klaus scrambles for the waste bin. He manages to get to it just in time to vomit up pills and a meager dinner. For a long time after, he leans his head against the rim of the bin. Refuses to look up at the mess that was Diego’s face again. “What. The. Fuck. Diego?” he grounds out through gritted teeth.

They’d just buried Ben—a couple weeks ago or months. Maybe years. It was too soon for Diego to do this and everything was all out of order.

It was supposed to be Klaus.

“I was saving lives.”

“You have a death wish,” Ben snaps. Klaus snorts because it’s good to hear Ben be frustrated with someone else for a change. Then coughs until he’s heaving again. Part of him hopes he can vomit this pain, this loss away.

“We just buried Ben,” Klaus says softly.

And Diego at least has the decency to stutter when he bites out a response, “Y-you had your st-stomach pumped the _day of_.”

“I was in mourning.” He’d needed to drown Ben out; was _still_ trying to drown Ben out. There’s no peace. No time to process and grieve when his brother was right on top of him all the time. The ghost that would never fade. “Maybe you should’ve tried it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

Then it’s quiet. For a long time. And Diego’s always been the strong, silent type but it feels like the longest they’d ever gone without trying to kill each other. Diego was never going to beat him up again. Klaus jolts up straight like he’s waking up from a nightmare.

Diego is gone.

“Where did he go?” Klaus asks, looking to Ben. He feels so hot and shaky and maybe this was all just a bad trip. Maybe Diego was never really there; maybe he’s still out there somewhere living his best death wish life. “Where…?”

“He just… disappeared,” Ben sounds perplexed. Ben is never perplexed.

Tears prickle at the corners of Klaus’s eyes and he tries to get up. Trips over nothing and collapses to the floor, drags the blankets down with him. He presses his face into the crumpled ball of blankets in his hands. Ben can’t see him cry that way.

So Klaus stays high—the kind of high that’s distressing even for him. Because two can play at this whole vanishing game and he doesn’t want to see or talk to Diego. Not if he’s going to be a dick about getting his own dumb ass killed.

He’s so high that he can’t even seen Ben. Or, maybe, Ben just didn’t want to come home. _Home_. What a fucking joke. At any rate, Ben goes quiet when they reach the alley outside the house. The cobblestones where he died. And then vanishes completely when Klaus swallows his last few pills, chases it with a mouthful of cheap vodka.

It takes five, maybe six tries to make it up the fire escape. By the time he crawls through the window, he’s a solid bruise. Scraped to hell and back. He doesn’t even care whose bed it is when he collapses, curls into a ball and shoves his head under the pillow.

Maybe Dad won’t see him.

When he wakes up, it’s Luther sitting next to him. And Luther’s never been _small_ but he looks small now, with his knees pulled up to his chest. He must’ve just come back from a mission; he’s still wearing that stupid uniform and he looks pale and shaky.

“Hey,” Luther says and it’s eerie how soft he sounds.

Klaus just groans in response, curls around the pillow and closes his eyes again. “Gonna…” He stops. Swallows. Reaches for the bottle of vodka like he can drink away the nausea. “Gon’ tell Dad?” he slurs, finally.

“No. Dad and I don’t talk.” There’s a weird, awkward silence and Klaus ventures cracking an eye open. Luther’s brow is furrowed in deep concentration, like when he can’t figure out a math problem. “I didn’t… I mean. I _wouldn’t_ tell Dad even he was talking to me. I wouldn’t do that to you…”

“Hey, bro.” Klaus reaches out aimlessly. Luther’s too far away and he ends up patting the air instead. “Don’t worry about it.”

The silence is slightly more comfortable this time. Two people who don’t _need_ to say anything or maybe they just don’t have anything to say anymore. Maybe they just need each other. Luther breaks it only once to say, “You should get some rest. Sleep this shit off.”

“Fuck you,” Klaus grumbles affectionately. He takes the advice, though.

When he wakes up again, the propellers on the ceiling are _spinning_. Too fast. He thinks the model airplanes are actually going to take off. Fly into the wobbling night. That explains why Luther was there, at least, Klaus supposes.

Is _still_ there, standing next to the open window. Staring out into the starry sky. Klaus isn’t surprised; Luther’s always like the stars. He tried to teach Klaus the constellations, once, but the names never stuck in his head.

Klaus groans.

“Good, you’re awake.” Luther is chipper, which Klaus thinks is entirely the wrong way to deliver that news. Nothing is _good_ about being awake right now. “It’s been almost two days. I was worried about you.”

Luther is _so_ sincere that Klaus is genuinely touched. He honestly doesn’t mean to snort with half-choked laughter. Groaning again, he pushes himself upright, lets Luther’s blankets pool in his lap. “We’re the only two left,” he says. And even he doesn’t know why he says it like a joke. All their brothers are _gone_ and somehow they’re still here.

He half-laughs, half-sobs as he fishes around in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

 _That’s_ when Luther turns around and Klaus realizes why he’s still in his uniform. He goes cold all at once. So cold that his fingers go numb and the cigarettes slip to the floor.

The top layer of skin on the left half of Luther’s chest is just _missing_. A wide chasm of red sinew and muscle. At the edges, the blackened skin has peeled up. It’s still smoldering a little. And Klaus leans over the edge of the bed and vomits what’s left of the pills and vodka in his stomach. He grips the edge of the mattress as tightly as he can, until his knuckles ache.

It’s only when Luther’s icy touch spills chills down his spine that Klaus realizes the low, animalistic whine is coming from him. That he can’t force enough air into his lungs. But he’s still breathing. He knows because he can see it. The air’s _so cold_ now.

“I should have told you,” Luther says quietly. And Klaus is barely processing what his brother is saying. “But I didn’t know how. I think I’m better off, now, though. It’s… peaceful.” There’s such a sadness in Luther that Klaus can physically _feel_ his heart shattering.

“Please, please, please, _please, please, please_ …” Klaus turns to Luther, reaches for him. Falls through his chest. His chest, so broad and strong it had seemed liked a brick wall. A defense between the outside world and what passes for a family around here. Defeated, Klaus curls up small at the foot of the bed, clutches Luther’s blankets to his chest. “I don’t wanna be alone.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Luther promises.

But Luther can’t keep that promise. Or won’t keep that promise. He fades in and out over the next couple of days. Weeks. Klaus isn’t sure. Just that sometimes Luther is there and sometimes he’s gone like he never even existed. Every time he vanishes, it’s a longer stretch. _Impossibly_ long. A lifetime.

“Where do you go?” Klaus asks. He presses his cheek into the cool bathroom tiles, too dopesick to even think about crawling back into bed.

Luther presses ghostly fingers against Klaus’s forehead. For once, it feels nice. Soothing on his hot, itchy skin. “I don’t know,” Luther says quietly. He moves his hand like he can actually stroke Klaus’s hair. “I don’t like it there, though. Everything hurts.”

“Everything hurts here,” Klaus points out.

“It’s okay,” Luther says. “I’ll stay with you.”

Of course, he doesn’t; Klaus has never expected his family to keep their promises. He doesn’t know how long it takes him to realize Luther isn’t coming back for him. Really, honestly, truly, is never ever coming back. And then he just has to get out of the house.

He doesn’t have money; he doesn’t have _anything_. But he finds himself drawn to a newsstand on the corner. To a tabloid speculating about whether or not the fold of Allison’s sweatshirt is a baby bump. Allison who managed to get the fuck out of here. She made it on her own. Klaus’s shaking fingers curl around the glossy magazine and he starts to flip the pages. Doesn’t even care that he’s ripping them.

“Hey! You read it, you bought it,” the man running the stand shouts. And Klaus flinches because, for a minute, he sounds exactly like Dad.

“Sorry. I-I don’t…” Klaus swallows. Shit. He should just run.

Suddenly, a hand curls around his elbow, hold him in place. “Don’t worry about it, man, I got this one.” A rogue Good Samaritan.

A _familiar_ rogue Good Samaritan.

“D-diego?” Klaus breaths. He doesn’t even know when the last time he took something was but he feels _really fucking high_ right now. Like the time he took too much E.

“Jesus. Kl-klaus?” Diego sounds as surprised as Klaus does. “Christ.” He has his other hand on Klaus’s other elbow now, turning him so he can get a better look. “How much weight have you lost? You look like death warmed over.”

“ _You’re_ the one that died,” Klaus points out.

And Diego looks even more confused, brow furrowed in frustration. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. How high are you right now?”

“’M _not high_.” He was pretty sure. Klaus wasn’t sure what was real anymore. But when he scrubbed his hands over his face, the pages of the magazine scraping his skin _felt real_. “You died. I saw you. Your face was all messed up and there was blood everywhere…”

There’s fresh, shiny scar tissue on the side of Diego’s head. And Klaus reaches for it. Flinches again when Diego bats his hand away.

“I _saw you_. You ‘n’ Luther ‘n’ Ben ‘n’ Five…”

“Lu-luther’s not d-dead, Klaus.” Diego’s eyes widen even further. He looks _scared_. Of what? The fact that Klaus is telling the truth, probably. No one wants to hear the truth from Klaus. “And I-I’m su-sure that Fi-five, wh-wherever the ba-bastard went, is just fi-fine.”

“But he’s _not_ ,” Klaus insists. “He ate a Twinkie and died.”

Diego blinks. Once. Twice. Reaches a hand up to take Klaus’s chin, tilts his head like he can figure out what’s going on with his brother.

“You died,” Klaus accuses.

“I’ve never died,” Diego repeats. And he looks _so sure_ and Klaus doesn’t even know what’s real anymore but Diego’s definitely solid and there and he bought him a magazine about Allison’s probable but maybe not baby bump.

And on its face its so ridiculous. Five ate a Twinkie and died. That’s what he said, but it couldn’t have been real. Maybe none of it was real. It was just some bad trip and…

And Diego hadn’t said anything about Klaus seeing Ben’s ghost.

In a wild panic, Klaus throws his arms around Diego’s neck and presses his face against his brother’s shoulder. This is real. Diego smells like sweat and that stupid cologne he likes and the dryer sheets Klaus hates. Klaus curls the magazine in his hand into a roll and grips it like a lifeline.

“I need help,” he mumbles. Sobs a little.

“I know a place,” Diego says. Drags his hand up Klaus’s spine, real and solid and warm.

“Good for you,” Ben whispers.

\--

Klaus is deep in the throes of withdrawal. His skin itches and the hot panic of claustrophobia is creeping up on him. The backseat of the car feels too crowded. With Luther cradling Allison on his lap, practically catatonic, and Klaus leaning over them both to press his hands against the wound on her neck. Her blood stains his thin, pale fingers so, so sickly red. And Ben is right on his shoulder, hovering just enough to keep the chills at bay.

“Klaus,” Ben says.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” Klaus murmurs under his breath. Presses his knees into Luther’s thigh to keep his hold on Allison because she’s _so cold_ and no one is helping him and he’s not going to lose another sibling. Not like this, not ever.

“Klaus!”

“What the fuck do you want?” Klaus snaps. They don’t have time for whatever games Ben is playing with him now. He whips around to glare.

And Allison is there, sitting next to Ben. She holds her hands to the gaping, ugly wound in her throat and he wraps his arm around her shoulders. Cradles her against his chest and strokes her hair even though she looks focused and not upset. Klaus feels sick and turns back to Allison’s…

She’s not dead. She can’t be. Allison is a survivor. _The_ survivor out of all of them.

 _I heard a rumor you don’t want to look_.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…”

“Klaus, I need you to listen to me.” Fresh blood wells over Klaus’s fingers when Allison speaks. She _can_ speak because the dead aren’t bound by the limits of their injuries. He feels sick and redoubles his efforts to hold his sister together.

“ _Please_ , Klaus,” she starts again. Her hand passes through his shoulder and it’s like ice water spilling down his spine. “Vanya…”

He shrugs Allison off, turns to look at her again over his shoulder. Never lets up. “Fuck Vanya. And fuck you, too. You don’t get to die on me.”

 “… die?” Luther’s voice is so staticky and distant. Like the old radio Klaus used to crank up before he sank down under the water in an icy bath. There but not all at once. And it doesn’t matter because Klaus’s whole world has narrowed to this moment. To Allison and Ben and his sister’s blood coating his arms. He’s forgotten his living brothers are there at all.

“Klaus, listen to her,” Ben says. All sage wisdom from the ghost world.

“Fuck you.”

“He has Vanya. We need to find her. There isn’t much time…”

“There isn’t much time because you’re _dying_ , Allison. Fuck. Off.”

Allison is silent, staring hard at him. She doesn’t have to say anything because that look is enough. _I’m already dead, Klaus_.

“No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nonononono.”

Abruptly, the car shifts and comes to a screeching halt in front of the Academy. The air smells like burning ozone and there’s spots on the edge of Klaus’s vision like when he’s been looking at strobe lights too long. “Jesus,” Diego snaps from the front seat, tinny and muffled, “warn a guy before you do that.”

Klaus’s stomach lurches. He plunges face first through Allison and Ben’s shitty ghosts and out the door. Lands hard on his knees on the alley cobblestones—the place where Ben died. And heaves. He hasn’t eaten all day but his shoulders shake with the effort to expel everything, _anything_ anyway.

“Sober the fuck up, Klaus.” Even in death, she has that tone. But her eyes are gentle when she kneels in front of him, when cold hands reach in vain to push his hair from his forehead. “ _Please_. Vanya needs you. I-I need you to do this for me…”

She cuts herself off to look over her shoulder at Ben. “I don’t know,” Ben says and Allison turns her gaze to their other brothers. To them unloading her body from the car.

“Oh.” She draws in a shuddering, gasping _breath_. Her ghost trembles. “ _Oh_.” And then she vanishes right in front of him and feels a pressure building behind his eyes. _Where did you go?_

“She’s breathing again,” someone—Diego he thinks—shouts.

And Five’s fingers, blissfully real and solid and warm, wrap around his bicep. “Goddamnit, Klaus. Come on.”

“Vanya,” Klaus gasps as he’s pulled to his feet. He stumbles after Luther and Diego, follows them into that crowded room. And he holds onto that thought because he’s cut it too close with one sister and he won’t lose the other.

But Vanya doesn’t die.

No thanks to his brothers, who completely ignore Klaus’s urgent suggestions that they find Vanya, they protect Vanya, they don’t lock Vanya in the basement torture chamber. Klaus can’t ignore the memory of Allison’s wide, wet gaze, the way she pleaded with him.

He’s sober when the world ends and he’s sober when it doesn’t.

And he’s so goddamn drop dead, spit on your corpse, fuck your ghost sober when Luther pulls the car up beside the house. When Vanya spills out of the backseat and onto the cobblestones. She’s tangled up in Luther’s gigantic overcoat, swimming in a sea of green wool, and it’s ridiculous.

Klaus can’t help but laugh when he tumbles out after her. Giddy and _alive_. Curls his fingers around her arms and tugs her upright again. Pulls her into his arms. He drags the cigarette from his lips and presses a kiss to the side of her head. It feels more natural the second time.

“Hey,” he whispers so only she can hear, “you didn’t die.”

**Author's Note:**

> My friend who has read all of the comics has endorsed the fantheory that instead of Luther's twin, Five is Klaus's. And that's all I need to run with it for angst purposes. That's my explanation.


End file.
